Washington - Gov. Scott Walker got a hero's reception Friday night at a banquet for conservative activists from around the country, where he declared that his defeat in a recall election this summer would be a lasting blow against political risk-taking.

"Lord help us if we fail," he said. "I'm not planning on it, but if we were to fail, I think this sets aside any courageous act in American politics for at least a decade if not a generation."

A featured speaker at the 39th annual Conservative Political Action Conference, Walker asked his dinner audience of roughly 1,000 to help him in his election fight with manpower and money, even instructing them how to text-message their contributions.

He portrayed his recall battle as having far-reaching national implications - beyond the Wisconsin governor's office, beyond any impact it might have on the November elections.

"When we prevail, it will send a powerful message to every politician in America, that if you stand up and do the right thing, if you tackle the tough challenges, if you make the tough choices, there will be men and women in every state and every part of this country who will stand up shoulder to shoulder, arm in arm with you," he said.

As hated as Walker is by labor and the left, his battle against public employee unions has transformed the second-year governor from a relative nobody in national politics to a darling of the right.

Facing an almost certain recall election this year, Walker has been traveling the country raising money and talking to sympathetic groups. But this was his first appearance before CPAC, a three-day convention billed as the nation's largest conservative gathering.

Asked why he came here, Walker said in an interview before his speech, "Oh I think we're going to need the help . . . not just financially but in terms of bodies and people helping us to spread the message."

While Walker has heavily outspent the other side in the opening phase of the recall battle, he warned his audience of tens of millions of dollars in spending to come from "the big-government union bosses" and "thousands of bodies" pouring in from outside Wisconsin.

"We need your help financially," he said. "Just one dollar, one dollar can be another phone call made. It can be another flier printed. It can be a piece of a radio or TV ad. Every bit counts."

The Walker trip here coincided almost perfectly with the anniversary of the political eruption sparked by his proposal to end most collective bargaining for public employees. Democrats and unions marked that anniversary Friday with fresh condemnations.

"Instead of trying to stop the six straight months of job loss and budget deficit created under his watch, Gov. Walker is out raising more out-of-state campaign money from the architects of the failed national, extreme tea party agenda he has enacted in Wisconsin, which tore our state apart," said Scot Ross, spokesman for Kathleen Falk, Democratic candidate for governor.

"While Gov. Walker is hobnobbing with the country's elite, people who work for a living, small businesses and entire communities across Wisconsin are struggling to make ends meet," said Stephanie Bloomingdale, secretary-treasurer of the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO.

Conference organizers in D.C. this week have touted Walker as a hero to the movement.

"This will be the first time almost all of these people will have ever seen Scott Walker," said David Keene, a Wisconsin native who until last year was chief organizer of CPAC and head of the American Conservative Union.

But "if you're talking to conservatives about the two governors they admire, it would be Scott Walker and (New Jersey's) Chris Christie," Keene said.

Some attendees interviewed about Walker admitted they knew next to nothing about him. But for many others among the overwhelmingly Republican and largely anti-union attendees, the Wisconsin labor wars have put him on the map.

"I suppose in states like mine he probably is a hero," said Scott Elliott, a lawyer from South Carolina, which has a "right-to-work" law. "In union states, it's probably a mixed bag."

"The fact he tried (it) and probably was pilloried in the process beyond all measure, I just think the world of him," said Elliott, who spoke as someone following Wisconsin's governor "from a thousand miles away."

"I don't think public employees should be organized," said Karlson Elliott, a conference-goer from Pennsylvania.

"Maybe back in the '20s and '30s" they were needed, he said. "The only thing they are right now is a means of raising money for the Democratic Party."

Noting Walker's national profile, Elliott said, "I wonder if he's open to a vice presidential stint. That would be an interesting thing."

The event's sprawling three-day program featured a round-table Thursday titled "The Return of Big Labor: What can we learn from Wisconsin & Ohio?"

Walker was treated much more favorably in that discussion than his fellow Republican governor, Ohio's John Kasich. While Walker has succeeded so far in dramatically weakening public-sector unions, Kasich was on the losing end of a referendum over a similar initiative in Ohio.

In the course of a 35-minute speech, Walker told his audience Friday, "Collective bargaining is not a right. In the public sector, collective bargaining is an expensive entitlement."

He called his changes "fundamentally pro-worker" for ending automatic paycheck deduction of union dues.

Speakers at this year's CPAC included GOP presidential candidates Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum on Friday. Sarah Palin will speak Saturday. Walker joined fellow Wisconsinite and Janesville congressmen Paul Ryan as banquet speakers on consecutive evenings. It's a marquee speaking role at the conference, but one that falls so late in the evening that most of the journalists who pack the event during the day are long gone.

About 1,000 people filled the tables at Friday's dinner, and the head table for Walker's speech featured several Wisconsinites: Keene, Bradley Foundation head Michael Grebe and National GOP chairman Reince Priebus.

Speaking before Walker, Priebus assailed President Barack Obama, calling him the "first unapologetic leftist to live at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., and he must be the last."

Introducing the governor, Priebus said of the Wisconsin fight: "The public union bosses are angry and refuse to go down without a fight. They're pulling out every trick in the book, because after all, hornets are always angriest when you try to destroy their nests."